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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564089">Coming Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remy_1425/pseuds/Remy_1425'>Remy_1425</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mechanisms (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fluff, Octokittens - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:00:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,886</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564089</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remy_1425/pseuds/Remy_1425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the past catches up to you, and you have dealt with it, having someone to come home to is crucial.</p>
<p>Or: Nastya comes home from Cyberia and the crew takes care of each other, in their own way. There is a lot of handholding and more or less cuddling involved, but none of them can confirm or deny.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nastya Rasputina &amp; The Mechanisms, The Aurora/Nastya Rasputina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Mechs Fic Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Coming Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin/gifts">Pippin</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Burning up is not fun. Regenerating even less fun. But it was worth it. Between the hollow shells of skyscrapers and high-performance servers, Nastya is standing in the rain. There is no sign of life. Given, there hadn’t been organic life on this planet for centuries, but there were no signs of artificial life either. Nastya made sure of that.</p>
<p>It would be millennia until life would return to this planet.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Her return to the aurora is silent. Nastya lets her know she is coming and Aurora prepares an airlock for her. Once she is inside, she heads straight to the engine room without letting anyone know. Some time alone with her girlfriend is exactly what she needs after blowing up her home.</p>
<p>When she leaves it again, Jonny almost shoots her in the head on the way to the bridge. Nastya just raises an eyebrow and looks at him over the rim of her glasses. He raises his hands and sulks back into the shadows. She knows he’ll be back to bother her before the hour is up, but for now he is content with knowing that she left the engine room.</p>
<p>Brian lifts his head when she enters the room and his metal teeth glint when he smiles at her. Nastya sits down next to him in front of the control panel. He slides closer, so she can lean against his shoulder, and grips her hand in his. He plays with her fingers as he recounts the last years on the ship for her. </p>
<p>Nastya closes her eyes and listens. Now and then she sighs or rolls her eyes at no one in particular (*cough* Jonny *cough*) when Brian recounts an especially dumb incident. Her personal favourite includes Jonny, Tim, superglue and two crates of dead fish, which had already been in the kitchen when she had left. And explosives, of course.<br/>The hand that Brian isn’t cradling is lying on the gently humming surface of the control panel.</p>
<p>When the hour is up, Jonny slinks into the room. A tiny part of Nastya’s brain is worried. She hasn’t seen him this silent in, well, ever. He hovers by the door, jittery. She’s half convinced that hell blow up the bridge, when he leaves again. Nastya returns her attention to what Brian is saying. Jonny will come to her eventually, he always does.<br/>When Brian is finished talking, they sit for a while, and stare into the dark void outside. </p>
<p>Then Nastya squeezes his hand and stands. On her way to the kitchens she runs into Marius. He bumps into her shoulder, spins around and sweeps into a deep bow complete with lifting his spiked hat. Then, seemingly out of thin air, an octokitten launches at his smiling face and he stumbles down the hallway, around a corner, out of sight. “GOOD TO SEE YOU AROUND” echoes through the hall, almost indistinguishable from the screeching of the kitten. Aurora hums in amusement and Nastya chuckles behind her hand. They are both fond of the kittens. Well, and Marius.</p>
<p>In the kitchen, Ashes is already waiting. A glass of whiskey in the one hand, their lighter in the other, they lean against the counter. They share a smile over the rim of their respective glasses. Nastya walks over to stand next to them, fixing herself a drink. Ashes nudges her shoulder with theirs. </p>
<p>“Are you doing okay?”</p>
<p>Nastya takes her time, screwing the cap back on the bottle, putting the bottle back on the shelf, taking a sip from her glass. Putting the glass back down on the counter. The Aurora hums under her fingertips. </p>
<p>“Yeah” she takes another sip. “Yeah I think I’m okay.”</p>
<p>Ashes body temperature always ran high and right now their warm hand on Nastya’s back is a comforting weight. They lean against the counter next to each other, nursing their respective drinks. Nastya tries to soak up all the warmth she can get. Cyberian fires burn cold and the ever-falling rain chills to the bone. </p>
<p>There is a deep understanding between the two of them, deeper than before. Ashes knows exactly what it takes to burn down a whole planet. And how it feels afterwards.</p>
<p>When their glass is empty, Ashes pats her on the shoulder and leaves her in the kitchen. On the way out they throw a thumbs up over their shoulder and Nastya smiles in her glass.</p>
<p>A few moments later there is a commotion outside. She can hear muffled screaming and the clank of metal on metal a few corridors to the right from the kitchens. Intrigued, she ventures out the hall, following the noise. The closer she gets, the better she can distinguish the voices against the sound of… construction work, maybe? The air vents around her whirr a little louder and she picks up the pace. </p>
<p>When she’s around the corner shots ring out and she skits to a halt. The sound of a body hitting the metal floor, then it’s silent. Carefully, not to startle whoever had shot… Jonny apparently, she peeks around the corner and sees Tim kneeling next to an open hatch, gun already put away. He fiddles with the wires and the Aurora lets the lights flicker a little. Tim looks up and cracks a smile when their eyes meet.</p>
<p>With a careful step over the blood pooling on the floor, Nastya makes her way over to him and kneels down next to him.</p>
<p>“What are you working on?”</p>
<p>Tim regards her with a raised eyebrow and she looks back over the rim of her glasses. They stare at each other, Tim trying to read her face and Nastya just lets him look. Everyone knows where she had been just a few days ago, and even if it didn’t look like it, they were always careful with each other. Just not, well, in the physical sense. </p>
<p>Jonny starts to twitch next to them, when they screw the hatch shut again. Nastya’s brain takes some time to adjust. They must have spent at least two hours kneeling in front of Tim’s project. Talking engineering with him, even if it’s only guns, is one of Nastya’s favourite things to do.</p>
<p>Tim excuses himself, to get away before Jonny is coherent enough to retaliate and Nastya settles next to him. She figures she can wait the few minutes it’ll take him to come back to himself. She follows the scratches in the floor and the walls with her fingertips and Aurora hums under her touch.</p>
<p>Jonny sits up and wipes the blood from his eyes. He gropes at his chest and feels the holes the bullets have left in his coat and groans. Nastya kicks at his legs to get his attention and a bullet ricochets off the walls. </p>
<p>She snorts and tries to hid her smile behind a concerned frown but it seems like she fails, because Jonny just narrows his eyes at her. The light flickers as the Aurora laughs silently. <br/>Then he scoots closer to her and throws an arm around her shoulders. </p>
<p>“Good to have you back” he claps her shoulder clumsily. “You know we –“ he clears his throat “we missed you.”</p>
<p>Nastya smiles to herself and leans into his body a little more. He doesn’t even feel her ports connecting until the air is crackling with electricity. Before he can pull his gun on her, his body is flung across the hallway. Aurora kindly opens a door for Jonny, and closes it behind him.</p>
<p>The air vents cackle as Nastya walks away from the blood. She wipes her hands on her coat and makes her way to the library.</p>
<p>Aurora can give her only a split second of warning, before a body barrels into her at full speed. She hits her head on the wall and is momentarily disoriented. She can faintly hear Raphaella laugh like a maniac. The overhead lights flicker and move through her vision, as Raphaella drags her down the hall. Nastya should have guessed this. </p>
<p>By the time Nastya has her wits together again, Raphaella is hoisting her up onto the autopsy table in her lab. Apparently, she really needs to see “the impact of that little adventure on her brain.” Nastya smiles. She must look like she has a concussion, because Raphaella starts fussing about immediately. It’s okay. That’s how the others know she cares. </p>
<p>Nastya is down from the table and out of the room before Raphaella can come at her with a scalpel or restraints. She takes a dive down one of the hatches that Aurora opened for her. Normally, any help from her would be off limits, but today is a special day and a special day requires special treatment. </p>
<p>The hatch snaps shut behind her and she tumbles out three stories down. Nastya gets to her feet and dusts herself of. Aurora points her in the right direction and so she goes off to find Ivy.</p>
<p>When Nastya approaches, she is sitting with her eyes closed, back ramrod straight in front of the shelves. Her eyeballs move erratically behind the closed lids. Her brain is whirring.</p>
<p>Nastya sits down across from her and grabs one of the files from the shelves. She plugs it in. This could take a while, might as well use the time.</p>
<p>When Ivy opens her eyes, she has read about ten thousand words of reports from millennia ago. </p>
<p>“I have last seen you 1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours and 43 minutes ago.”</p>
<p>Nastya nods. She has counted about the same but its always hard to judge how long one has been regenerating. </p>
<p>“I will need a full report.” She grabs Nasya’s hand and pulls her arm into her lap. Her fingertips skim gently over the skin where the ports are embedded. Nastya pulls one of the empty storage discs of the shelf and plugs the chord in. then she starts talking and Ivy’s eyes roll back in to her head to record. She holds her hand all the way through it.</p>
<p>That night, Nastya makes her way back to the engine room. She picks up an octokitten on her way. She meets no one on her way, but she could swear that she heard whispering once or twice, while passing the rooms of the others. </p>
<p>She meets the Toy Soldier in the hall in front of the door to the engine room, with a cup of tea in its hands. It just hands it over with a bow and flourish and disappears down the corridor.</p>
<p>Aurora dims the lights when she enters. Nastya walks by the controls and Aurora opens the hatch to the cable shaft for her. She climbs in and shuts it behind her. This is by far her favourite place on the ship. Here, close to the servers that are her girlfriends’ brain, she feels warm and dry enough to sleep. She cuddles the kitten to her chest, nested in a pile of cables.</p>
<p>It’s funny, how these things work. Her crewmates guard their emotions closely, or what is left of them anyways. But on days like these, everyone knows how to be careful with one another.  </p>
<p>Under the watchful gaze of Aurora her eyes slip closed and her breathing evens out. Nastya Rasputina is home.</p>
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